The invention relates to the treatment of a material with silver. In one aspect the invention relates to the coating of a polymeric material with silver. In another aspect, the invention relates to the incorporation of silver in a moldable polymeric material.
It is known that a metal coating can be applied to the surface of a solid material. There are numerous utilities for the resulting metal-laminated object, depending upon the metal and substrate used. Silver is one metal which is, for certain utilities, desirable to coat on a polymeric surface. A silver coating might, for example, be applied to a polymeric surface to provide a laminate with an electrically conductive layer. Conventional methods to coat a surface with silver, however, are generaly somewhat complicated and time-consuming.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a simple method for coating a surface with silver. It is a further object to provide a method for treating a polymeric material to apply a thin film of silver on the surface thereof. In another embodiment, it is an object of the invention to provide a polymeric molding compound which has silver incorporated therein.